Run for your life: the GUSA election takes to Youtube

By last night, each GUSA Executive campaign released at least one Youtube video. They range from the expected and mundane to the unexpected and amusing. Some prioritize messaging over cleverness, while others are clearly trying to make a splash. So if you want to vote in the GUSA election but don’t want to read through all the platforms or poorly-done live blogs of debates, here are Youtube videos from every campaign.

The most popular video of the campaign thus far has been Murphy Kate Delaney and Michael Appau’s “Running for GUSA“, which adapts Jay-Z and Kanye West’s “N**gas in Paris” to Georgetown. Both have surprisingly good rhythm, giving them slack for some very contrived lyrics (the rhyme scheme of “He said “Murph can we get married at the Daaahl(grin)” / I said “Maybe when the Hoyas finish balling” / Come and meet us in the Gaston Hall ‘n” as one example), though clearly Delaney needs to articulate her stance on President Obama’s birth certificate after spitting the line, “Mikey’s straight out of Ghana / Like a Georgetown Obama.”

In what looks like the only campaign video produced by an outside group, vice presidential candidate Markel Starks walks dramatically down a hallway in Healy Hall, and talks about the campaign as the lighting changes dramatically. Although he only makes two references to his running mate, he does describe the fundamental point of their campaign: to institute practical reforms instead of focus on long-term reforms. The LaMagna-Starks campaign is also the producer of a Herman Cain-inspired ad that includes a Hoya smoking on a parked DPS car. Their official Youtube channel has an Introduction, a video Starks filmed from the locker room on the morning before the vice presidential debate, and video that includes Hollis Thompson and Henry Sims endorsing LaMagna-Starks.

If not for the musical background, the elaborate scarves and a giddy ending, the Clara Gustafson-Vail Kohnert-Yount ticket’s initial video would be a relatively straightforward discussion of their many plans to improve student life as GUSA president and vice president. Full of active verbs, this video was the first demonstration that their campaign would rely on clear, strong messaging. The memorable “CV” logo that has graced many Facebook and Twitter profile photos in the last week is the centerpiece of their second video, which was released at the end of last week.

Exuding their theme of experience, the Colton Malkerson-Maggie Cleary ticket’s video is a simple, no-frills promotion of their plans for GUSA. Avoiding the slightest possibility for mockery, this video seems to be doing its best to be neither seen nor heard. This campaign is incredibly serious, for better or worse. Ultimately, this campaign will be remembered for this, not its videography.

Tyler Sax and Michael Crouch’s video follows the pair as they formulate their campaign ideas through Dahlgren Quad, Hoya Court, Yates, the first floor of Lau, the bookstore, a Gospel Choir practice, a radio show, and a Groove Theory rehearsal. All in one evening apparently. One wonders how they fit schoolwork between their racquetball match and their radio show. While this is their most-viewed video, Vox prefers their intensely dramatic video about helping GERMS practice an emergency situation.

Parodying Clint Eastwood’s Super Bowl commercial for Chrysler, the John Morris-Lauren Weber ticket’s video plays on Hoyas’ everyday concerns, such as tying their shoelaces and running out of toilet paper, though it’s unclear what punch knocked us down in the first place.

Released yesterday, “Sh*t Hoyas Say” is the Nate Tisa-Sheila Walsh ticket’s first video of the campaign. Purposefully devoid of any actual proposals, the video pokes fun at common Hoya expressions like “hashtag” and “what’s GUSA.” The video ends by declaring enough’s enough and tells viewers to vote for Tisa-Walsh. For reasons unarticulated.

Talk about serious… these videos are intended to be fun or informational and that’s it. There’s no need to try and analyze them as if they were serious film. And I happened to think that the Morris-Weber parody and the Delaney-Appau music videos were hilarious (including the line about Mike being a Georgetown Obama).

I’d rather watch someone that gives Hoyas a voice than some bullshit about how experienced you are. Hoyas can go to the WEBSITE listed at the end, where they will be able to read one of the most comprehensive platforms out there in pdf form or otherwise.

Speaking to the point of these videos being produced for fun, it makes little to no sense to waste time reporting on inane and irrelevant information such as the ability to make a fool of oneself in poorly-made parodies of top-40 songs, etc. Describing these videos is a blatant insult to readers, who can see the attempts at campaign videos for themselves.

In the above sentences, I use “produced” lightly, as few of these videos could justify any manner of recognition of the barest iota of production value. You can squeeze the same amount of relevant information out of the following photo of a cute kitten:

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